Vodacom Building Nigeria’s Smart Grid

Vodacom Nigeria, has said it is engaged in leveraging broadband to turn Nigeria’s regions, cities, and towns to smart-connected, chip based, remotely & pro-actively managed areas.

Ms Mickey Mashale, managing executive, Public Enterprises, Vodacom in a presentation at the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) conference 2013, said that communications is not just part of the “black box”, modem or meter, however managing components like large volumes of SIM cards in the field can be demanding.

She said that Vodacom is concerned with mitigating communications related challenges, especially through contained and managed costs.

On Vodacom’s quest to containing challenges faced in health, education, governance, among others, she said the Company has developed seamless infrastructure supported solutions, particularly hardware that support future needs.

Mashale quoting McKinsey CIO survey, IDC, Gartner, William Blair analyst report, Jan 2012, Global Insights WMI, Machina Research, said that five major tech. trends are reshaping Enterprise customers’ business models.

They include consumerisation of IT, Security and Control, Fixed-Mobile Convergence, Everything Connected and hosting and cloude.

“What’s shaping Nigeria and why do we see it as a partnership; government alone could not achieve the 5year plan; Citizens alone could not achieve the 5year plan and Private sector alone cannot achieve the 5 year plan.

Speaking on impact of broadband, she said the infrastructure can improve the efficiency, cost and reach of public sector services in areas of high government interest, such as health, education and government services.

The Managing Executive said that “Broadband is an economic enabler; it is an enabler of e-business and new market opportunities, allowing firms, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMMEs) to realise growth through productivity increases stemming from improved information exchange, value chain transformation, and process efficiency (OECD, 2003).

“Knowledge Creation, it Improves the skills and education of individuals through the use of broadband services and widespread and affordable broadband access can contribute to productivity, economic growth and social inclusion.

Illuminating on Vodacom’s studies across different strata of the economy, highlighted that, for instance, broadband enables improved quality of education and training through smart deployment of ICT solutions; using Broadband Network for Administration and Curriculum delivery; enables teachers and students/learners to meet the challenge of the Information Age and Bridging the Digital Divide and ICT integration into the learning and teaching process and impacts of ICT on access, cost effectiveness and a robust quality delivery of Education.

Nevertheless, Vodacom preferred solutions for over and above connectivity to address the teacher, the learner and the administrator challenges include Learning Management Systems (LMS)/ Learning Content Management System (LCMS), School Management, Analytics & Reporting, Curriculum Content aligned to NCS & CAPS or Tertiary Institution, Course Delivery Management, Education Portal Management, Learner & Teacher Personal Workspaces, Video & Online Collaborative tools – Social Media for Learning, Identity & access management and digital rights, Repositories/ Databases.

She also hinted on Vodacom solutions for social security, health and governance related issues.